#thea engst

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Two books I got myself. Never heard of either one so I am excited!

The best part of the second book is the dedication and illustrations.

Guess who’s illustration that is for

[anthonyspage]

🌊💀🚣‍♂️🍸

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"Bondage" by Thea Engst

She wore loss like a wristwatch. They stopped on her. She had to go digital but never liked the look. He was the man she wanted to leave, but the act was harder than the dream. Thirty years went before she remembered what she was supposed to be doing. By then there was a child and a dog, at least two cats. She’d certainly lost track of time. She thought about getting something to keep tabs on the passing minutes, something she could wear like her loss on her wrist like a handcuff.

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"Crescendo", by Thea Engst

The silence reminds me of all the dead things in the air.  Hanging like Christmas ornaments I never was attached to; never thought it was lovely to come home to a porcelain elf judging like a rosy-cheeked saint on my mantle. I tried blaring music, tried jumping  until my breath became heavy and loud. When I glanced outside there was a swing-set, downstairs the floors creaked as if someone were walking them.   This is not the home I wanted to keep.  You are not the man I wanted. She cried with dried up eyeballs like an alien. Mother wanted something none of us possessed. 

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Lalling, Germany by Thea Engst

Our grandfathers met at work in the fifties and even when yours returned to Bavaria they stayed in touch, flew us all overseas

hoping we’d also be friends. You, the boy closer to my brother’s age, somehow closer instead to me: three years older, annoyed

at babysitting you that summer. But by the end I cried when you left. I don’t remember saying good-bye, just the quiet of your absence, the bend

of the season into fall, leaves dropping like snowflakes. We were teenagers, you were always bad at email, years disappeared without you. A decade makes

me buy a ticket to see your thick brown eyelashes, your lips form broken English. Grassjumper sounds better to me. But tonight you don’t speak, flashes

of lightning break up the quiet sky. We used to think storms happen when clouds collide into electricity and water. Today we know the true

cause is the quick loss of heat. The storm settling over the mountains tonight is no different. Our grandfathers could have planned this. Stubborn, meddling

men, orchestrating a reunion somehow, years after cancer beat them both. When I last saw yours drunk with mine, he told me how much he feared

our families losing touch. I feel their disappointment on your porch. The dark clouds shading the trees, graying them while the wind pushes branches, bent

to the ground, forces leaves to clap like hands. I think of the veins running through them, pushing up the skin, like an old man’s.

I’m sorry for something now, I don’t know what and you don’t seem to notice through cigarette after cigarette. Instead you exhale, fan away smoke.

You ask, “Do you remember last you were here? That night? There was a storm and then there was no light.”